Yes, we admit it, we’re one day late with our weekly airport round-up. So without further ado, let’s get right into it: This week, dozens of airport construction projects across the USA have been put on hold as the government failed to pass legislation to keep the Federal Aviation Administration running, wrote Passenger Terminal Today. According to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, the FAA’s operating authority expired, forcing a partial shutdown of the agency. This has meant dozens of stop-work orders were issued last weekend on projects throughout the country.
Aerial displays are something all airports are good at, well, at least if you classify the graceful starts and landings of aircraft as such. Now Changi Airport in Singapore (IATA: SIN; LD reviewed) put up a whole different kind of aerial show: To publicise their Changi Millionaire draw, the airport invited Strange Fruit, a world-renowned Australian performing arts company, to perform at Changi Airport’s Terminal 3 last Friday.
Let’s start with some good news and let us congratulate Vancouver Airport (IATA: YVR) as the Canadian airport celebrated its 80th birthday this week. According to the Vancouver Sun, it drew delegations from airports around the world to admire its public art and West Coast decoration.
In 2017 the Beijing New International Airport (BNIA) will open for business and will then become the world’s largest airport in terms of aircraft movements. Clearly such a large airport needs an extraordinary master plan. NACO, a Dutch airport planning company recently won the design for the master plan – we wrote about it in our weekly news. We now have the chance to speak to NACO’s managing director, Rik Krabbendam to ask him a few more questions. Continue reading Interview with NACO’s managing director about Beijing New International Airport→
It’s been a very average week in terms of airport news from around the world. But don’t you worry, we wouldn’t be here if we couldn’t find juicy news for you even in a story drought. Actually, there was no shortage of airport news from one corner of the planet this week: Los Angeles. That’s because this weekend the main transit road from the city to the airport, the I-405 freeway was partially closed for demolishing an overpass. We wrote about it last week.
This week we saw airport news all the way from Beijing, Los Angeles, Manchester and once again even from Australia. Let’s start with that: On Wednesday Tiger Airways Australia’s grounding received an extension until end of July. It has now also finally stopped its ticket sales, reported the Wall Street Journal.
It’s been another busy week for airports around the world. And once again we have seen the full spectrum of news articles coming in: everything from small animals delaying flights at one of the busiest airports in the world to an “animal-named” airline being grounded due to safety concerns. Oh and then there’s the one with new bathrooms too. But let’s start at the beginning:
A recent article from the UK’s Daily Mail caught our eyes as it claims people find airports as stressful as moving house. The article claims it questioned 2,000 [British] holidaymakers of which 9 per cent – or almost four million in the wider travelling population – now avoid flying because of airport stress including flight delays, mislaid belongings and getting to the gate on time.
This week Paris put on a good show by hosting the 49th International Air Show at Le Bourget Airport (IATA: LBG), 11km northeast of Paris. While the usual purchase orders of new aircraft made the rounds throughout the week, EADS, the parent company of Airbus announced its details of a hypersonic transport concept cutting air travel times down significantly as reported by FlightGlobal and others. It is said that the plane could cut the Tokyo-Los Angeles journey to as little as 2h 20min.
Everyone loves a good bargain, that’s why duty-free shops are must-stops for most travellers. However, increasingly tougher regulations and more crowded flights have taken a lot of the fun out of shopping before departing as many travellers would have come across airports with tough (and sometimes confusing) liquid rules or they would have faced difficulties finding overhead locker space on crowded flights. That’s why more and more travellers leave their shopping until they land at their destination: duty-free on arrival is the new buzz word.
